WHAT THE TREES SAID: Life On A New Age Farm

by Stephen Diamond ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 1971

Diamond was a member of the Liberation News Service which -- as the Village Voice commented -- ""performed a unique change of address,"" running to earth, you might say, in New England. Ray Mungo has already recorded his retreat to Total Loss Farm (1970) although that book dealt much more fractionally with the rustic commune experience. Diamond and co-liberationist Marshall Bloom, who was really their swami (you'll find Marshall sitting around naked under an umbrella, indoors) settled along with some others in a house up the road apiece -- a New England house with 17 rooms -- where for the first half year they led a pretty unstructured existence -- everything flipped-out. Diamond describes with some sincerity his epiphanic encounter with the trees (he was on a trip), and some of the prosaic facts of this ""yin-yang ecstasis"" may escape you as well as the collective budget of some 16-20 people who had $25.00 a month for food and $25.00 for miscellaneous. By the next summer life is more organized as well as organic -- they're gardening, they've got chickens and cows. Diamond leaves the farm for a time but is drawn back there and Marshall's suicide and the attendant envoi will get to you. So may the casually upbeat ""Where are we going? Who knows? It takes a lifetime to get there"" -- on the way to post-post Kerouac, post-Kesey, eupsychic reclaimation.

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION